Researchers led by Professors ZENG Changgan and CHENG Guanghui of China, along with collaborators at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have for the first time experimentally demonstrated that quantum vacuum fluctuations can enhance superconductivity. The team embedded the superconductor NbSe2 within a terahertz dark cavity to amplify these fluctuations, observing a critical temperature increase of up to 5.4% in a six-layer device.
“Vacuum fluctuations in free space are generally too weak to produce observable effects in macroscopic condensed-matter systems,” said Professor ZENG, explaining how the dark cavity overcame this limitation and reshaped the electromagnetic environment. This finding confirms a theoretical framework proposed by Professor JIANG’s team.
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